My Fake Spring Break

Sometimes you just can't escape the rhythms of the school year. Even when you're not enrolled anywhere, I guess your body and brain still somehow adhere to the schedule you've been running on since age 5. And so it is that I've ended up with an accidental "Spring Break." I'd planned on a visit home sometime in March, but didn't realize that I'd picked the same exact week as old Alma Mater. At any rate, it's good to get the heck out of dodge. But then I ask myself, what exactly am I taking a break from? Not from homework, not from anything teleological, seeing as my world is now less about definite chronology and much more about repetition. I have plenty of free time-- free time that I longed for when I was in the thick of things this time last year. But knowing me, I can't quite be satisfied. Because now I must give meaning to spare time. And that's not necessarily an easy feat. Free space stresses me out. Autonomy stresses me out. My brain stresses me out. My still everpresent grief stresses me out.
I needed an escape. Not from school. Not from exterior stressors. From interior battles. From constant analysis that never solves things.
You can graduate from school, but you can't graduate from being yourself. You can leave classroom dialogues, but never escape from the ongoing one you have with your self.
So I am home. Because I need a break from ME.